This book explores the Broadway legacy of choreographer Agnes de Mille, from the 1940s through the 1960s. Six musicals are discussed in depth—Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, Carousel, ...
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This book explores the Broadway legacy of choreographer Agnes de Mille, from the 1940s through the 1960s. Six musicals are discussed in depth—Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, Carousel, Brigadoon, and Allegro. Carousel and Brigadoon were de Mille’s most influential and lucrative Broadway works. The other three shows exemplify aspects of her legacy that have not been fully examined, including the impact of her ideas on some of the composers with whom she worked; her ability to incorporate a previously conceived work into the context of a Broadway show; and her trailblazing foray into the role of choreographer/director. Each chapter emphasizes de Mille’s unique contributions to the original productions. Several themes emerge. First, character development remained at the heart of de Mille’s Broadway work. She often took minor characters, represented with minimal or no dialogue, and fleshed out their stories. Second, de Mille often came into conflict with her collaborators because of her strong views, but her dances added a layer of meaning that resulted in more complex final products. Finally, de Mille saw much of her choreography as an authorship and argued that she should be given the same rights as the librettist and the composer. Her work as an activist contributed to revisions in dance copyright law and the founding of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a theatrical union that protects the rights of directors and choreographers. Agnes de MilleLess

Agnes de Mille : Telling Stories in Broadway Dance

Kara Anne Gardner

Published in print: 2016-09-29

This book explores the Broadway legacy of choreographer Agnes de Mille, from the 1940s through the 1960s. Six musicals are discussed in depth—Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, Carousel, Brigadoon, and Allegro. Carousel and Brigadoon were de Mille’s most influential and lucrative Broadway works. The other three shows exemplify aspects of her legacy that have not been fully examined, including the impact of her ideas on some of the composers with whom she worked; her ability to incorporate a previously conceived work into the context of a Broadway show; and her trailblazing foray into the role of choreographer/director. Each chapter emphasizes de Mille’s unique contributions to the original productions. Several themes emerge. First, character development remained at the heart of de Mille’s Broadway work. She often took minor characters, represented with minimal or no dialogue, and fleshed out their stories. Second, de Mille often came into conflict with her collaborators because of her strong views, but her dances added a layer of meaning that resulted in more complex final products. Finally, de Mille saw much of her choreography as an authorship and argued that she should be given the same rights as the librettist and the composer. Her work as an activist contributed to revisions in dance copyright law and the founding of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a theatrical union that protects the rights of directors and choreographers. Agnes de Mille

Alan Jay Lerner was the lyricist of some of the most beloved musicals of all time, including My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon, and Camelot. Yet much of his work is less well known and his career has ...
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Alan Jay Lerner was the lyricist of some of the most beloved musicals of all time, including My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon, and Camelot. Yet much of his work is less well known and his career has been overlooked in the scholarly literature on musicals. This book helps to bridge the gap by providing new insights into his working life through his professional correspondence with his colleagues and friends. The collection contains letters to Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Frederick Loewe, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Leonard Bernstein, among many others. It also provides an extensive commentary outlining his early years and putting his career into context.Less

Alan Jay Lerner : A Lyricist's Letters

Dominic McHugh

Published in print: 2014-09-01

Alan Jay Lerner was the lyricist of some of the most beloved musicals of all time, including My Fair Lady, Gigi, Brigadoon, and Camelot. Yet much of his work is less well known and his career has been overlooked in the scholarly literature on musicals. This book helps to bridge the gap by providing new insights into his working life through his professional correspondence with his colleagues and friends. The collection contains letters to Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, Frederick Loewe, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Leonard Bernstein, among many others. It also provides an extensive commentary outlining his early years and putting his career into context.

Familiar entertainment icons, stories, and signs from the 1950s and 1960s continue to resonate within contemporary American society and culture. Both the political Left and Right invoke the events ...
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Familiar entertainment icons, stories, and signs from the 1950s and 1960s continue to resonate within contemporary American society and culture. Both the political Left and Right invoke the events and memories of those decades, celebrating or condemning the competing social forces embodied in and unleashed during those years. In recent decades, the entertainment industry has capitalized on this trend with films and television shows that often look back on the 1950s and 1960s with a mixture of nostalgia and criticism.Less

Anxiety Muted : American Film Music in a Suburban Age

Published in print: 2014-11-12

Familiar entertainment icons, stories, and signs from the 1950s and 1960s continue to resonate within contemporary American society and culture. Both the political Left and Right invoke the events and memories of those decades, celebrating or condemning the competing social forces embodied in and unleashed during those years. In recent decades, the entertainment industry has capitalized on this trend with films and television shows that often look back on the 1950s and 1960s with a mixture of nostalgia and criticism.

This book looks at the musical, from The Beggar's Opera to Wicked. Looking at Star Comic and Sweetheart Heroine; the war between musical comedy and operetta; the rise of the sexy story in the 1920s; ...
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This book looks at the musical, from The Beggar's Opera to Wicked. Looking at Star Comic and Sweetheart Heroine; the war between musical comedy and operetta; the rise of the sexy story in the 1920s; the wedding of ballet and hoofing in the 1930s; Oklahoma! and Carousel “musical plays” of the 1940s; Novelty Star in the 1950s, and other developments, this book looks at George Gershwin to Ethel Merman to Jerome Robbins to the director-choreographer and the offbeat contemporary show: Porgy and Bess, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Grand Hotel, Grey Gardens, and Rent. The book emphasizes not only the writing of musicals but the performing of them. Considering the development of dance, the book follows it from zany hoofing in the nineteenth century through the tap “combinations” of the 1920s and the injection of ballet and modern dance in the 1930s and 1940s. Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, and Gwen Verdon: theirs was a time when dance seemed as crucial as music by Richard Rodgers or lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The book examines also the changing role of the star, noting how such early-twentieth-century headliners as Fred Stone seldom varied their portrayals, whether as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz or Little Red Ridinghood's fatherly guardian in The Stepping Stones.Less

Anything Goes : A History of American Musical Theatre

Ethan Mordden

Published in print: 2013-09-05

This book looks at the musical, from The Beggar's Opera to Wicked. Looking at Star Comic and Sweetheart Heroine; the war between musical comedy and operetta; the rise of the sexy story in the 1920s; the wedding of ballet and hoofing in the 1930s; Oklahoma! and Carousel “musical plays” of the 1940s; Novelty Star in the 1950s, and other developments, this book looks at George Gershwin to Ethel Merman to Jerome Robbins to the director-choreographer and the offbeat contemporary show: Porgy and Bess, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Grand Hotel, Grey Gardens, and Rent. The book emphasizes not only the writing of musicals but the performing of them. Considering the development of dance, the book follows it from zany hoofing in the nineteenth century through the tap “combinations” of the 1920s and the injection of ballet and modern dance in the 1930s and 1940s. Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, and Gwen Verdon: theirs was a time when dance seemed as crucial as music by Richard Rodgers or lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The book examines also the changing role of the star, noting how such early-twentieth-century headliners as Fred Stone seldom varied their portrayals, whether as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz or Little Red Ridinghood's fatherly guardian in The Stepping Stones.

This book approaches George Gershwin’s iconic Rhapsody in Blue as an “arrangement”—a status it has held since its inception in 1924, yet one unconsidered until now. It shifts the emphasis away from a ...
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This book approaches George Gershwin’s iconic Rhapsody in Blue as an “arrangement”—a status it has held since its inception in 1924, yet one unconsidered until now. It shifts the emphasis away from a centralized composition and from the sole agency of a single composer, positing a broad vision of the Rhapsody. Based on a host of newly discovered manuscripts, this book significantly alters existing historical and cultural conceptions of the Rhapsody. Each chapter engages a different set of previously unknown documents, providing the reader with a dynamic and multifaceted reappraisal of this emblematic piece of American music. In the process of remapping the terrain of the Rhapsody, new light is shed on familiar and lesser-known musicians who each used arrangements of the piece to establish their musical identities: Ferde Grofé, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Larry Adler, and Anthony Brown. Also considered over the course of the book is the role of visual media in the enduring status of both Gershwin and the Rhapsody, including forays into film, television, and the commercial advertising of United Airlines. The overlapping, divergent, and otherwise hidden narratives that emerge reveal how arrangements of Rhapsody in Blue have shaped the development and approach of musicians throughout the twentieth century and beyond. The reader emerges from the process with new conceptualizations of the Rhapsody, George Gershwin, and music-making in America.Less

Arranging Gershwin : Rhapsody in Blue and the Creation of an American Icon

Ryan Bañagale

Published in print: 2014-10-09

This book approaches George Gershwin’s iconic Rhapsody in Blue as an “arrangement”—a status it has held since its inception in 1924, yet one unconsidered until now. It shifts the emphasis away from a centralized composition and from the sole agency of a single composer, positing a broad vision of the Rhapsody. Based on a host of newly discovered manuscripts, this book significantly alters existing historical and cultural conceptions of the Rhapsody. Each chapter engages a different set of previously unknown documents, providing the reader with a dynamic and multifaceted reappraisal of this emblematic piece of American music. In the process of remapping the terrain of the Rhapsody, new light is shed on familiar and lesser-known musicians who each used arrangements of the piece to establish their musical identities: Ferde Grofé, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Larry Adler, and Anthony Brown. Also considered over the course of the book is the role of visual media in the enduring status of both Gershwin and the Rhapsody, including forays into film, television, and the commercial advertising of United Airlines. The overlapping, divergent, and otherwise hidden narratives that emerge reveal how arrangements of Rhapsody in Blue have shaped the development and approach of musicians throughout the twentieth century and beyond. The reader emerges from the process with new conceptualizations of the Rhapsody, George Gershwin, and music-making in America.

In the years from 1908 to 1923, Arnold Schoenberg developed a compositional strategy that moved beyond the accepted concepts and practices of Western tonality. Pieces from this period such as Pierrot ...
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In the years from 1908 to 1923, Arnold Schoenberg developed a compositional strategy that moved beyond the accepted concepts and practices of Western tonality. Pieces from this period such as Pierrot Lunaire and Erwartung remain masterpieces of the modern repertoire. The lasting importance of Schoenberg's atonal music is reflected in the very large but fragmented critical and analytical literature that surrounds it. This book synthesizes and advances the state of knowledge about this body of work, building up a comprehensive description from close analytical study.Less

The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg 1908–1923

Bryan R. Simms

Published in print: 2000-11-16

In the years from 1908 to 1923, Arnold Schoenberg developed a compositional strategy that moved beyond the accepted concepts and practices of Western tonality. Pieces from this period such as Pierrot Lunaire and Erwartung remain masterpieces of the modern repertoire. The lasting importance of Schoenberg's atonal music is reflected in the very large but fragmented critical and analytical literature that surrounds it. This book synthesizes and advances the state of knowledge about this body of work, building up a comprehensive description from close analytical study.

Austin City Limits comprises nearly four decades of changes in civic identity, media, and in potential ways people experience musical meaning. This book acts as a prism pulling together the singular ...
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Austin City Limits comprises nearly four decades of changes in civic identity, media, and in potential ways people experience musical meaning. This book acts as a prism pulling together the singular achievements of the PBS television show, and refracting them in ways that bear on popular media culture. Beginning with Willie Nelson’s 1975 pilot broadcast, Austin City Limits sustained national relevance over decades vis-à-vis the local scene and American popular music more broadly, both in constant flux. Austin City Limits spans dramatic shifts in the nature of television and expansion of digital media: once a circumscribed weekly broadcast, it is now a program available for streaming, a presence on Twitter and other social networks, and a “brand” or concept that conveys quality music. It simultaneously exists as a major music festival and a state-of-the-art venue. Thus Austin City Limits draws private and public enterprises—civic, cultural, business, and media organizations—into relationship with audiences in new twenty-first-century ways. The show’s history corresponds to the rise of Austin as “Live Music Capital of the World”; throughout that rise, the show fed the city’s claim to musical vitality just as the city grounded the show’s reputation for authenticity. Furthermore, Austin City Limits bears on the evolution of US public television, along with the broader dilution of genre as a concept. From regional showcase to its current post-genre space as musical tastemaker, Austin City Limits emerges from its deep Texas roots to flower in many directions.Less

Austin City Limits : A History

Tracey E. W. Laird

Published in print: 2014-10-02

Austin City Limits comprises nearly four decades of changes in civic identity, media, and in potential ways people experience musical meaning. This book acts as a prism pulling together the singular achievements of the PBS television show, and refracting them in ways that bear on popular media culture. Beginning with Willie Nelson’s 1975 pilot broadcast, Austin City Limits sustained national relevance over decades vis-à-vis the local scene and American popular music more broadly, both in constant flux. Austin City Limits spans dramatic shifts in the nature of television and expansion of digital media: once a circumscribed weekly broadcast, it is now a program available for streaming, a presence on Twitter and other social networks, and a “brand” or concept that conveys quality music. It simultaneously exists as a major music festival and a state-of-the-art venue. Thus Austin City Limits draws private and public enterprises—civic, cultural, business, and media organizations—into relationship with audiences in new twenty-first-century ways. The show’s history corresponds to the rise of Austin as “Live Music Capital of the World”; throughout that rise, the show fed the city’s claim to musical vitality just as the city grounded the show’s reputation for authenticity. Furthermore, Austin City Limits bears on the evolution of US public television, along with the broader dilution of genre as a concept. From regional showcase to its current post-genre space as musical tastemaker, Austin City Limits emerges from its deep Texas roots to flower in many directions.

Created in the jazz clubs of New York City, and initially treated by most musicians and audiences as radical, chaotic, and bewildering, bebop has become, this book states, “the lingua franca of jazz, ...
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Created in the jazz clubs of New York City, and initially treated by most musicians and audiences as radical, chaotic, and bewildering, bebop has become, this book states, “the lingua franca of jazz, serving as the principal musical language of thousands of jazz musicians.” It takes an insightful, loving tour through the music, players, and recordings that changed American culture. Combining vivid portraits of bebop's gigantic personalities—among them Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis—with deft musical analysis, this book offers an instrument-by-instrument look at the key players and their innovations.Less

Bebop : The Music and Its Players

Thomas Owens

Published in print: 1996-10-10

Created in the jazz clubs of New York City, and initially treated by most musicians and audiences as radical, chaotic, and bewildering, bebop has become, this book states, “the lingua franca of jazz, serving as the principal musical language of thousands of jazz musicians.” It takes an insightful, loving tour through the music, players, and recordings that changed American culture. Combining vivid portraits of bebop's gigantic personalities—among them Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis—with deft musical analysis, this book offers an instrument-by-instrument look at the key players and their innovations.

This book constructs a wide-ranging cultural history to explore the earliest stage works of Leonard Bernstein, written during World War II: the Broadway musical On the Town, the ballet Fancy Free, ...
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This book constructs a wide-ranging cultural history to explore the earliest stage works of Leonard Bernstein, written during World War II: the Broadway musical On the Town, the ballet Fancy Free, and a nightclub comedy act called The Revuers. Bernstein and his collaborators—including the choreographer Jerome Robbins and the writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green—crossed artistic, political, ethnic, and racial boundaries with abandon. With the zeal of youth, these emerging artists infused their work with progressive political ideals. On the Town focused on sailors enjoying a day of shore leave, and its first production featured a mixed-race cast, contributing an important chapter to the racial desegregation of American performance. It projected an equitable inter-racial urban vision in an era when racial segregation was being enforced contentiously in the U.S. military. The show starred the dancer Sono Osato, even as her father was interned together with so many Japanese Americans. Fancy Free amiably encoded its own dissenting narratives. Based on a controversial painting by Paul Cadmus, it grew out of a complex web of gay relationships. The book explores cross fertilizations across art forms and high-low divides, drawing on intensive archival research, FBI files, interviews with surviving cast members, and previously untapped criticism in African American newspapers.Less

Bernstein Meets Broadway : Collaborative Art in a Time of War

Carol Oja

Published in print: 2014-08-22

This book constructs a wide-ranging cultural history to explore the earliest stage works of Leonard Bernstein, written during World War II: the Broadway musical On the Town, the ballet Fancy Free, and a nightclub comedy act called The Revuers. Bernstein and his collaborators—including the choreographer Jerome Robbins and the writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green—crossed artistic, political, ethnic, and racial boundaries with abandon. With the zeal of youth, these emerging artists infused their work with progressive political ideals. On the Town focused on sailors enjoying a day of shore leave, and its first production featured a mixed-race cast, contributing an important chapter to the racial desegregation of American performance. It projected an equitable inter-racial urban vision in an era when racial segregation was being enforced contentiously in the U.S. military. The show starred the dancer Sono Osato, even as her father was interned together with so many Japanese Americans. Fancy Free amiably encoded its own dissenting narratives. Based on a controversial painting by Paul Cadmus, it grew out of a complex web of gay relationships. The book explores cross fertilizations across art forms and high-low divides, drawing on intensive archival research, FBI files, interviews with surviving cast members, and previously untapped criticism in African American newspapers.

In the early twentieth century, female performers regularly appeared on the stages and screens of American cities. Though advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they often exceeded ...
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In the early twentieth century, female performers regularly appeared on the stages and screens of American cities. Though advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they often exceeded these categories. Instead, their performances adopted an aesthetic of intermediality, weaving together techniques and elements drawn from a wide variety of genres and media, including ballet, art music, photography, early modern dance, vaudeville traditions, silent film, and more. Onstage and on-screen, performers borrowed from existing musical scores and narratives, referred to contemporary shows, films, and events, and mimicked fellow performers, skating neatly across various media, art forms, and traditions. The performances and conceptions of art that emerged were innovative, compelling, and deeply meaningful. This book examines these performances and the performers behind them, focusing particularly on the ways in which they negotiated turn-of-the-century American social and cultural issues, including technological developments and commodification, new modes of perception, evolving understandings of the body and the self, and shifting conceptions of gender, race, and sexual identity. Tracing the various modes of intermediality at work on- and offstage, Body Knowledge re-imagines early twentieth-century art and entertainment as both fluid and convergent.Less

Body Knowledge : Performance, Intermediality, and American Entertainment at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Mary Simonson

Published in print: 2013-09-27

In the early twentieth century, female performers regularly appeared on the stages and screens of American cities. Though advertised as dancers, mimics, singers, or actresses, they often exceeded these categories. Instead, their performances adopted an aesthetic of intermediality, weaving together techniques and elements drawn from a wide variety of genres and media, including ballet, art music, photography, early modern dance, vaudeville traditions, silent film, and more. Onstage and on-screen, performers borrowed from existing musical scores and narratives, referred to contemporary shows, films, and events, and mimicked fellow performers, skating neatly across various media, art forms, and traditions. The performances and conceptions of art that emerged were innovative, compelling, and deeply meaningful. This book examines these performances and the performers behind them, focusing particularly on the ways in which they negotiated turn-of-the-century American social and cultural issues, including technological developments and commodification, new modes of perception, evolving understandings of the body and the self, and shifting conceptions of gender, race, and sexual identity. Tracing the various modes of intermediality at work on- and offstage, Body Knowledge re-imagines early twentieth-century art and entertainment as both fluid and convergent.

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